Art of restoration

Local artist beautifies church interiors

Patrick Dove/Standard-Times Crystal Goodman, a San Angelo artist and muralist, puts the finishing touches of faux marbling on the main altar at St. Joseph's Church in Rowena. Goodman said it took her about a month to finish the project.

OLFEN — Local artist and muralist Crystal Goodman is used to working on flat surfaces like a wall or a canvas. Some of her handiwork is on display in downtown San Angelo as part of a facade improvement and restoration of the area.

She also is the creative director of the Vino Dipinte Art Gallery, which features local, state, national and international artists and hosts wine and painting classes.

So it's not often she gets a commission that involves climbing a three-story scaffold and then a ladder on top of that to paint 15 angelic faces on the interior of a church dome. Or one that involves using Q-tips to painstakingly clean the nooks and crannies of an altar.

But when St. Boniface Catholic Church in Olfen and St. Joseph Catholic Church in Rowena commissioned her to restore and beautify their interiors, it was a job she readily accepted.

"It was an interesting change," Goodman said. "I'm used to flat surfaces and two-dimensional, and in the churches, some of it was three-dimensional, and I was painting on curves and angles. It was fun to do."

St. Boniface, which was rebuilt in 1922 after a fire destroyed the first wooden church in 1911, underwent major repairs earlier this year. Everything was moved out, including the pews, and parishioners worshipped in the hall next door.

"The plaster was falling off the walls in chunks," said committee member Starla Matthiesen. "The ceiling was sagging, and we had leaks. The whole church was stripped, and everything was moved into the hall. We fixed the leaks, the bell tower and the windows, and we replastered all of the damage and repainted."

The committee had heard about Goodman and her artistry and contacted her about beautifying the interior of the church.

Goodman marbleized the columns along the main aisle and patched and repainted some of the stenciled design along the arches. Faux marbleizing is a finishing technique that gives painted surfaces the look of natural stone.

The dome once had angels, but they were painted over many years ago, and the committee wanted to bring them back, Matthiesen said.

Using the scaffold and ladder and wearing a neck brace, Goodman first repainted the dome in its original blue color. Then using old black-and-white photos, she brought back to life the 15 angel heads with wings and surrounded them with white, wispy clouds and stenciled stars. Each has its own sweet expression. One is sleeping, and there are 14 blonds and one redhead.

"When I went to Italy in March, I asked my tour guide what the difference was between an angel like this and a cherub," Goodman said. "She said that angels with wings coming out of the sides of their heads were on the highest level of going up into heaven."

She also restored a white dove against a red circle in the middle of the angels.

Parishioners were pleased with the final results.

"They were so happy," Matthiesen said. "Especially the older ones. It looks so much better. Crystal was like an answered prayer."

When Goodman finished in Olfen, she moved over to Rowena to work on its main altar.

"The altar hadn't been cleaned in years," she said. "So I had to thoroughly clean it before I could start painting. I had to use Q-tips to get into the notches and grooves."

The altar was a butter color with brown trim, and Goodman repainted it white before marbleizing it with shades of sienna and ultramarine blue.

"It was very inspirational to work on the altar," she said. "The colors were so faded and peeling and cracking."

Goodman sometimes found parishioners looking over her shoulder as she worked.

"It was great to hear comments as it was going on," she said. "Someone would say, 'Oh, I didn't know something was here' or, 'I never saw that detail before.'"

Once committee members saw how beautifully the main altar turned out, they had Goodman marbleize other smaller altars around the church.

She also restored and repainted some of the church's statues. On the main altar she refreshed the teal green and light mauve robes worn by St. Peter and did the same for St. Paul's robes and face and repaired his sword.

"Preparation is 90 percent of the work," Goodman said. "I had to first clean the crevices between the toes, the fingers, the curls of the beard and inside the ear."

Goodman said she would love to restore the murals in the dome, which were of an ascending Christ flanked by angels and painted over in the 1970s. She'd also like to marbleize the columns as she did in Olfen. But those are her visions and any decisions would be up to the parish committee.

Goodman's next project for the church will be to redo the interior wooden frames around the stained glass windows. The church found sponsors for each window and will start that project in January, said committee member Maxine Michalewicz.

Goodman's talent runs in her family.

Her granddaughter Laura Hollway, 10, drew a colorful picture of hearts that was picked over 200 other entries as a mural for a hospital in Corpus Christi. And to top it off, the mural is just a couple of streets over from one Goodman did earlier.